The Seven Hills

by John Maddox Roberts

  Cato looked over the camp and passed the thing to Niger. "The important thing is: He hasn't linked up with Hamilcar yet." Word had come to them that Hamilcar had crossed the strait and that meant they would meet him in Spain.

  "Close to our numbers," Niger said. "I'd say we have a slight superiority, unless he has some sizable elements out foraging." That was a matter for concern. The sudden return of a large party after a battle was joined could be disastrous.

  "We'll chance it," Norbanus said. "We'll never have a better chance. I want our men in battle order on that field at first light tomorrow, even if it means moving them around all night to get them in position."

  What he proposed was risky and difficult, but his subordinates made no protest. They had confidence in their leader now.

  Just before sundown a party of scouts rode in and informed Mastanabal that they had seen elements of an approaching Roman army. The scouts were Edetani, black-haired warriors with legs formed to the barrel of a horse.

  "What were these Romans doing?" the general asked.

  "They behaved very strangely," the head scout said. "Almost as soon as we saw them, they halted at a piece of flat ground. Some men took odd instruments from their shoulders and stuck them into the ground. They looked along the tops of these instruments and waved their arms and shouted to the others. Then many men ran about the field and stuck colored flags into the ground. We think it was some sort of religious rite, although we saw no sacrifices."

  Mastanabal and his senior officers chuckled. They had seen the elaborate Roman system of encampment many times during the Alexandrian campaign. These Spaniards were too primitive even to post sentries, much less recognize the nature of such a proceeding. The general made sure that he had the exact distance and location of the Roman force and dismissed the scouts.

  "Excellent!" Mastanabal said. "They will break that camp before first light and will be here by late afternoon tomorrow to find us blocking their way."

  "So, will we give battle the morning after?" asked a subordinate.

  "Why wait? If there is as much as an hour's light left when they arrive, I intend to give battle immediately! These Romans rely heavily upon their formations and battle order. We will strike before they can deploy fully."

  In the blackness before dawn Mastanabal was awakened by the sound of trumpets. His eyes snapped-open and he knew something had to be wrong. His groom held his horse ready and he mounted. As he pelted through the camp, men were tumbling from their tents, demanding from one another what was happening. Roman soldiers would already be armed and on their way to their positions on the rampart, Mastanabal thought enviously. He had seen the Romans' night drills, how every man tented in exactly the same spot in every camp and manned the same spot on the wall, so that no matter where they were, the Romans were in the same fort as always.

  Not for the first time, Mastanabal wished he had an army made up solely of Carthaginians, instead of this polyglot rabble. But that would not be the Carthaginian way, he thought resignedly. He came to the tower over the main gate and ran up its wooden stair. "What is it?" he barked. "If this is a false alarm, I'll have you all crucified!" The soldiers looked fearful, knowing this was no idle threat. Their officer seemed unimpressed.

  "Movement out there, General," he said. "They're being quiet, but it's no scouting probe." He gestured to a rope ladder that lay coiled at his feet. "I went down the wall and walked out a way to be sure. Couldn't see anything, but there's a sizable force gathering on the field to the east of us." The officer, a Spartan professional, knew his business. Mastanabal began to have a very bad feeling.

  His senior officers gathered behind him on the platform. No one spoke while their general held his silence. He was not about to speak until he knew exactly what he faced. The coming dawn would tell him all he needed to know. Dawn was not long in coming.

  Shouts of wonder rah up and down the rampart; men babbled in a score of tongues and called upon a hundred gods as growing light revealed what had appeared upon the field before them. A huge army stood there, drawn up in great rectangles, standard-bearers to the fore. The most terrifying thing about them was not their numbers, which were no greater than those of the Carthaginian army, or their perfect order, for the Greeks and Macedonians were as disciplined. What struck Mastanabal's men with fear was their eerie, utter silence. It was like beholding an army of ghosts.

  The Roman encampment had been a ruse. Mastanabal cursed himself for falling for such a trick. They had marched all night to get here. Such a night march was in itself a considerable feat. But to get out onto that field and form up from marching order to battle order in darkness, completely undetected save for a keen-eared Spartan soldier? Who was capable of such a thing? Certainly not a Roman general like the one he had already beaten. Then he knew.

  "It's Norbanus," he said quietly.

  "Can it be he, my General?" said a subordinate. "The spies said he was back in Italy, but to come all the way here—"

  "It can be no other. I came to know him on the Egyptian campaign. He is wily and imaginative. Only he could have done this."

  "I knew him, too," said a Libyan commander. "He can make men march, but he has little reputation as a fighting general. His part in the battle outside Alexandria was well done, but it was just a field maneuver that gave us the advantage. His men did little fighting."

  That was true, and the words put heart in the Carthaginian leader. "Counting standards, I make his strength at eight legions. We still have superior numbers, and we are far stronger in cavalry. And the gods of Carthage are stronger than the gods of Rome. He's taken the best ground, naturally, but we won't fight him there. He can come here and fight us, where we have the fortified camp at our backs and the river on our flanks. The advantage is all ours here."

  "What if he refuses to give battle, My General?" asked the Libyan.

  Mastanabal smiled wolfishly, showing sharp teeth. "Then we will take our ease right here. Soon the shofet will join us, with an army twice our size. Norbanus can fight us then, if it pleases him." His commanders chuckled. That was better. The unexpected shock to their nerves was receding. "Order the men to breakfast. We'll send out a delegation to parley, then make our battle dispositions when the sun is high—"

  "My General," said the phlegmatic Spartan, "you had better look over there."

  The sun had risen behind the Romans, casting its glitter from standards and spear points and polished armor. At first, nothing seemed to have changed. Then he saw the rhythmic flashing along the line. It came from the polished greaves worn by the centurions. They were walking. With the same incredible precision, without the sound of so much as a single trumpet, the Roman army was advancing.

  "My General," said someone, "I don't think they want to parley."

  They had given him no time! No time to plan, no time to feed his men, no time for a harangue, no time to make the customary sacrifices. Were he to rush through the ceremonies now, he would look like a half-beaten man, no longer in control of his and his army's fate.

  "Do we meet them here or on the field?" demanded the Libyan. "We must know now."

  "There is no time to deploy properly. They would catch us with half our men outside the camp, half in. We will meet them here on the walls. It will just take longer to kill them all this way. They must be exhausted after marching all night, and our men are well rested. This is just like Norbanus. What he is doing is bold, but it is foolish. He wastes his men needlessly." It galled him but he had little choice. It was safe enough, but from here he could not concentrate his strength as he pleased. He could not take advantage if he saw a weakness in the Roman formation. There was no scope for generalship in such a fight. On the walls, the ferocity of his Gauls and his Spaniards would be wasted. His splendid cavalry would remain penned up like sheep, completely useless.

  Remorselessly, the legionaries came on. He scanned to their flanks and rear. They seemed to have no siege-train. That was excellent. With no heavy missile hurlers or specializ
ed assault equipment, they must attack the rampart with infantry alone. That would prove very costly to them. It was the worst possible way to assault a fortification, simply hurling human flesh against steel.

  He looked along his own wall. It was only earth and timber, but the earth was heaped eight feet high and topped with sharpened stakes. He had not entrenched. He had not dug a ditch lined with traps and foot stakes. But he had never expected to have to defend this place. It was merely a temporary camp for amassing a force to renew the attack on Rome.

  It was no matter. He had beaten Romans before. He would beat this army as well. Already, his men were over their first astonishment. All up and down the western wall, tribal war chants boomed out. Spaniards waved their vicious falcatas and Gauls whirled their long swords. Slingers were taking their positions, their pouches full of lead slugs. Archers arranged their arrows tidily. At the southern end of the wall the Greeks stood silent and ready, superbly armored and holding their long spears.

  Mastanabal was satisfied. There were few recruits in his army. Most were men with long experience of war. The Romans were raising legions too fast. They had too many untried boys, not enough veterans. It had led them to disaster before, in Hannibal's time and now in his own. He squinted toward the approaching Romans and tried to make out their dispositions. The rising sun at their backs made this difficult. They had chosen the right direction from which to make their assault.

  This one leaves little to chance, Mastanabal thought.

  Norbanus watched the advance with greatest satisfaction. All had worked out perfectly. The ruse with the false camp had paid off handsomely. His greatest worry had been that the scouts would leave some men behind to make a count of the arriving legions. They would have seen that the army did not halt at the camp and would have known the truth. His own horsemen might not have caught them. But the scouts had been satisfied with what they had seen and they had been too lacking in initiative to wait to see more.

  And, as always, the gods of Rome were watching over their favorite, Titus Norbanus.

  His men made a splendid show as they marched in perfect silence. They had stripped the covers from their shields, displaying bright new paint, the colors and devices identifying the various units. Those who had crests and plumes had mounted them on their helmets, the bright feathers and horsehair nodding to their steps. Armor and weapons were polished bright. Brightest of all were the standards. His four old legions, veterans of the long march, had turned in their old standards and been given the new, standardized eagles of silver and gold. The men who carried them were draped with the skins of lions. The bearers of the lesser standards wore pelts of wolf and bear.

  And, he reflected with some satisfaction, the ruse and the night march had not been his only inspired decisions. The silent advance had been his idea as well. He had instructed his men carefully that there would be no trumpets, but all orders must be given with the voice, in words quietly but clearly spoken. Here the oratorical training of the officers had paid off, for they knew how to make themselves heard without shouting. He knew that to the enemy on the wall opposite, the sight would be awesome and frightening.

  The crowning achievement was his decision to attack at first light without negotiation. It looked foolish, but he knew that it made the best possible use of his strength while crippling his enemy. Mastanabal could not know that his fortified camp was, to the Romans, nothing but a big Gallic oppidum, and they had taken hundreds of such by storm. It was one of the most basic tasks given to legionary trainees.

  They had marched all night, but he had given them two days of rest before beginning it. This had been risky, since they might have been reported by locals anxious to curry favor with Carthage, and it gave Hamilcar more time to link up with Mastanabal's army, but he had deemed the risk acceptable.

  No doubt about it, he thought, his planning and execution had been without flaw and without peer. The name of Titus Norbanus would live forever. And this was only the beginning.

  First, though, to reduce this fortification and exterminate this army that had the impudence to exist upon what was, by right and the will of the gods, Roman territory. His battle plan was fully formulated and was even now being implemented. It was unique and, of course, it was risky. But a man proved his greatness only by pressing his luck relentlessly.

  And, did the Carthaginian but know it, this was just one part of a two-part battle. The other phase was even now being fought. It galled Norbanus that he could not be in control of that battle as well.

  Decimus Arrunteius, duumvir of the fleet already called the Norbanian, paced the long deck of his flagship, Avenging Mars. The deck itself was a new innovation. The traditional warship had a mere catwalk stretching its length between the benches of the upper banks of rowers. Romans liked room for soldiers to maneuver, so they had raised the catwalk above the rowers' heads and widened it into a true deck. The Greek shipwrights had protested that this would destroy the ships' stability and make them prone to capsizing. The Romans' answer had been swift and impatient: Build the ships wider. The Greeks had said that this would make the ships slow and unwieldy. The Romans answered that men were cheap: Add more rowers.

  The result Arrunteius surveyed all around him: a fleet of ships larger and more powerful than the traditional Greek trireme that had been supreme on the Middle Sea for centuries. The ships might not be quite as quick or maneuverable as the Greek ships, but he had confidence that their superior qualities would more than make up for this.

  And confidence was needed. He knew that a Carthaginian fleet lay ahead of him, not far away. That nation had reigned supreme on the sea since the expulsion of Rome from Italy. The Carthaginians and their many seagoing allies were long experienced and tested in sailing, in rowing, and in battle upon the waters. The Romans were none of these things. But once before Rome had bested Carthage at sea, and they counted on Carthaginian arrogance, that Carthage would have forgotten the lessons learned at such cost.

  Arrunteius walked forward and mounted the "castle," a strong tower erected near the prow of Avenging Mars. Similar towers adorned the foredecks of the larger warships. Behind each tower stood a long bridge, one end hinged to a circular pivot on the deck, the other featuring a three-foot spike of iron. In battle it would be swung outboard and dropped so that the spike sank into an enemy deck; forming a boarding bridge for the marines manning every Roman ship. It was called a corvus: "crow."

  In addition, every ship was built atop an extra-massive keel, its fore end tipped with a heavy ram of cast bronze.

  The Romans had little confidence in their ability to maneuver in action and to ram, but they wanted both to be decisive when accomplished.

  In all, the new, Italian-built fleet had nothing like the wildly imaginative innovations of the Alexandrian fleet, but its improvements had been well thought out, and some, like the tower and the corvus, had proven successful nearly two centuries before, in the first war against Carthage.

  About the men, Arninteius was not so certain. The sailors were mainly Greek, each with an Italian understudy learning the craft. The rowers were Italians, working their way into Roman favor in the most arduous way imaginable. They had mastered the skills of the oar and now took pride in their work. They had formed their own guild with its special gods, rituals and sacrifices. Their loyalty they would prove in action.

  The marines, likewise, were mostly Italians, with a leavening of legionaries for stiffening: They had been drilled with great intensity in the arts of Roman close combat. Every man was armed with heavy and light javelins, a short, razor-edged gladius and a dagger. They wore iron helmets and shirts of Gallic mail. These last were shorter than the legionary type, extending only to the waist, and they lacked the distinctive shoulder doublings of legionary armor. Their shields, likewise, were somewhat smaller and far lighter than those used on land. These changes had been deemed expedient for warfare at sea. The shields were painted blue for sea service, and adorned with pictures of tritons, Nereids, hippoka
mpi, the trident of Neptune and other nautical designs.

  "Admiral!" called the sailing master, a Greek like most of them. "Around that point," he jabbed a finger at a cape of land that jutted into the sea to the southwest, "lies a cove near the mouth of the Iberis. If the Carthaginian army is anywhere nearby inland, it is a natural place for their fleet to put in."

  "Then we will go around the cape in battle order. If there are no hostile forces in sight, resume cruising as usual." The requisite orders were passed by flag, and the fleet prepared for action, as it had numerous times before: Yards and sails were lowered and stored away, but the masts were left standing, for the corvi were slung from them. Arms were prepared; the sky was scanned for omens. The ships took up position abreast with the heavy triremes in the first line, the smaller, swifter biremes in the second and the smallest vessels and the transports well astern. In a slow and stately maneuver, like a legion changing front on the parade ground, the great line of ships swept around the cape. On the other side they found the Carthaginians.

  Despite himself, Arrunteius gaped at the sight, his hands gripping the rail of the castle's waist-high bulwark. Drill and training was one thing. This was the first time Romans had beheld an enemy fleet since before the days of their grandfathers. "How many?" he demanded of the sailing master.

  "Forty triremes at least. Not the main fleet by at least a hundred warships."

  Arrunteius felt the sweat of relief spring from beneath his helmet. His greatest fear had been that his untested fleet would be thrown against the far larger combined battle fleet of Carthage. He needed a smaller fight to get his men blooded first, and it looked like that fight would be big enough. He had thirty-four triremes in his command, and twenty of the smaller biremes. He was outnumbered and the enemy was more experienced at this sort of fighting, but his ships were already arrayed for battle and had caught the other fleet by surprise. That advantage, plus the heaviness and power of his capital ships, should be enough.